Oscar Predictions 2009

The movie awards season is culminating with the Academy Awards. Amidst all the hoopla, I have decided to give my take on who will win. It is necessarily a myopic one, given that I have not seen all the nomination films/performances, but here is my two cents worth nonetheless.

Best Picture: Slumdog Millionaire, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, The Reader, Milk, Frost/Nixon.

Will Win: Slumdog Millionaire
Should Win: Milk

The critical consensus is that this was a weak year in terms of Best Picture nominations. What we do have are five very different films. It is clear that the popular sentiment and the momentum is with Slumdog Millionaire. People love an underdog rags to riches story, and that Slumdog has in spades, though it has enough of an emotional heft to make it more than a lightweight. Slumdog will win mainly because it is the movie with the fewest detractors and because of its happy Hollywood feel good ending. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button is a superbly made film, but some found it overlong and not really engaging. The Reader was even more divisive - some thoroughly disliked it, though it has the holocaust theme going for it and a fine performance by Kate Winslett. Milk for all its great acting, is too controversial for many of the Academy voters. The two main contenders are Slumdog and Benjamin Button, but expect Slumdog to ride on a wave of sentiment and good feeling to take the award.

Among this year's contenders, I actually liked the two front-runners the least. Slumdog was a well-made film, but it tugged too obviously at the emotional heart-strings for me, and its Hollywood nature seemed just a little bit contrived despite the weightiness and grimness of the setting and the subject matter. Benjamin Button will win lots of technical awards (art direction, visual effects and make-up) and it features excellent direction and technical elements. But the movie was overlong, sometimes slow and seemed oddly detached. I thought The Reader was a movie that was very thought provoking and raised many difficult questions. It was an excellent adaptation. It didn't quite completely cohere though. Milk for me was a superb biopic of a specific time and a place, not just a person, with a knockout performance by Sean Penn. It also featured, for me, one of the most moving scenes in cinemas this year with the candlelit march at the end. It certainly tugged at the heartstrings, but the movie had earned it by then.

Best Actor: Mickey Rourke, The Wrestler; Sean Penn, Milk; Brad Pitt, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button; Frank Langhella, Frost/Nixon; Richard Jenkins, The Visitor

Will Win: Mickey Rourke, The Wrestler
Should Win: Sean Penn, Milk

This is going to be a toss-up between Mickey Rourke and Sean Penn. Jenkins' nomination was reward enough for constantly being overlooked, Pitt was decent enough but didn't even appear on camera for the first 40 minutes of the film, which in many ways was the more compelling portion of it. The strong sentimental favourite is Rourke who puts in a great performance as an ageing Wrestler whose life is on the ropes and headed for a three count. It was a role made for him, and the way it mirrors his own personal decline will win him huge sympathy. If the academy votes with its gut instead of its head, as it usually does, this is Rourke's award to lose.

Sean Penn was simply superb as Harvery Milk. He gave a performance that was so nuanced, so true to character and so real, that he practically lit up the screen throughout the movie. It was a virtuoso performance of technical acting ability that deserves the Oscar. They say that biopics do well in the acting categories which should mean Penn is a lock but Milk's character and the openly gay nature of the role will have drawbacks at the Academy. That is not to say I didn't like Rourke's performance, which given the gritty realism of the role could just as well be a fictional biopic. It was a tough call for me but I will have to go with Sean Penn.

Best Actress: Kate Winslett, The Reader; Anne Hathaway, Rachel Getting Married; Meryl Streep, Doubt; Angelina Jolie, Changeling; Melissa Leo, Frozen River.

Will Win: Kate Winslett, The Reader
Should Win: Kate Winslett, The Reader

The only real contenders here are Kate and Meryl with Angelina as a strong dark horse. Anne Hathaway is still young, and though she showed real acting chops as the attention seeking guilt ridden younger sister the Academy will feel she still has the advantage of time. If she continues to take on edgier, deeper roles, she may well win an Oscar in the future. Angelina was good in Changeling and it was a wonderfully written role in yet another great Eastwood vehicle that has proven successful at spawning acting Oscars in the past (Tim Robbins, Sean Penn - Mystic River, Gene Hackman - Unforgiven, Hilary Swank, Morgan Freeman - Million Dollar Baby). But Eastwood was largely overlooked this year, and Jolie thought she was good, didn't do enough independent of the role to warrant a second Oscar.

Meryl Streep was nominated yet again. Some say she was brilliant, some say she was doing yet another version of the typical Meryl turn, but this goes for any movie she has made in the past decade. I thought she did a wonderfully good job as a nun full of righteous indignation who is determined to hold on to what she believes is the truth. A fifteenth nomination is deserved, but the Academy has shown its reluctance to reward her with another statuette and this will not change.

This will be Kate Winslett's year. Six nominations shows her range, diversity and an ability to really embody a character. She put in a bravura performance, in a truly difficult role - enabling us to empathize with a Nazi holocaust camp guard and feel for her at a human level. Besides, the old dictum holds - Holocaust movies always win Oscars (it certainly did the trick for Adrian Brody in The Pianist).

Best Supporting Actor: Heath Ledger, The Dark Knight; Michael Shannon, Revolutionary Road; Philip Seymour Hoffman, Doubt; Josh Brolin, Milk; Robert Downey Jr., Tropic Thunder

Will Win: Heath Ledger, The Dark Knight
Should Win: Heath Ledger, The Dark Knight

This award is a virtual certainty, but it is more than just a sympathy vote given in celebration of Heath Ledger's life and achievements. His turn in The Dark Knight was truly frightening. He made the role of the Joker his own, embuing it with a frightening malevolence, manic glee and perverse delight that was equally disturbing and enthralling to watch. His was the performance that held a superb movie together. The other nominees all turned in notable performances - Brolin providing excellent support to Penn, and Hoffman performing with his usual excellence as the priest at the center of the allegations in Doubt. I was happy that a comedic role was recognized (fewer and fewer such roles seem to get the Academy's attention) and Downey's turn in Tropic Thunder as an Australian method actor playing a Black was truly delicious. That said, as good as the rest of them were, they pale in comparison to Heath.

Best Supporting Actress: Penelope Cruz, Vicky Cristina Barcelona; Marisa Tomei, The Wrestler; Amy Adams, Doubt; Viola Davis, Doubt; Taraji P. Henson, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

Will Win: Penelope Cruz, Vicky Cristina Barcelona
Should Win: Marisa Tomei, The Wrestler

Penelope Cruz puts in a wonderfully turn as a deranged, suicidal and fatally unbalanced ex-lover of Javier Bardem in Woody Allen's latest offering. This is Cruz in her element, darkly fun (and funny) - unlike a number of her recent roles where she was miscast as the smoldering Spanish flame which really doesn't suit her style. Woody Allen vehicles are good for acting Oscars for females (Mira Sorvino, Mighty Aphrodite; Dianne Wiest, Bullets Over Broadway and Hannah and her Sisters; Diane Keaton, Annie Hall) and Cruz is odds on to join the list.

Her closest challenger is Marisa Tomei, who complements Mickey Rourke superbly in The Wrestler as a stripper who is also his sometime love interest. Tomei is as utterly convincing as a stripper as Rourke is as a Wrestler, with both understanding that their occupations are performances of sorts. She gives us a character at once jaded and cynical while also showing a more human side as a single mother, creating a vulnerability that is never forced. She and Rourke hold the movie together, and her performance was a real standout. And I might also add here (though it obviously has absolutely no bearing on my choice) that Tomei is an absolute stunner and a knock out, even post-40.

Amy Adams is pleasant enough as the innocent nun torn between Meryl Streep and Philip Seymour Hoffman but is very much the third leg in the acting trio. Viola Davis puts in a shattering and heartfelt 10 minute mucus strewn turn as the mother of the boy who may or may not have been sexually abused, but her lack of screen time doesn't give her the depth necessary to win (that is barring another Judi Dench). The academy will feel Taraji Henson's time might come, but it won't be for her role as Brad Pitt's mother.

Best Director: Danny Boyle, Slumdog Millionaire; David Fincher, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button; Gus Van Sant, Milk; Ron Howard, Frost/Nixon; Stephen Daldry, The Reader

Will Win: Danny Boyle, Slumdog Millionaire
Should Win: Gus Van Sant, Milk

I initially thought that this might be one of those year's where there would be a Best Picture/Best Director split: Slumdog taking Best Picture, David Fincher recognized for lending Benjamin Button the artistic and technical mastery that it has. But I finally succumbed to the Slumdog onslaught. Despite Boyle being much more of a Hollywood outsider than Fincher (in fact that applied to just about everyone who worked on Slumdog), the rags to riches story set in the Mumbai slums has won the hearts of everyone.

Pity then to Gus Van Sant, who has a varied and interesting body of work and does an excellent job putting together Milk. From the choice use of archival footage which was subtle and well chosen (rather than egregious and attention grabbing like Forrest Gump) to enabling us to wholly inhabit San Francisco in the late 1960s, it was a superb achievement which will, sadly, go unrecognized.

Adapted Screenplay: Simon Beaufoy, Slumdog Millionaire; Eric Roth, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button; John Patrick Shanley, Doubt; Peter Morgan, Frost/Nixon; David Hare, The Reader

Will Win: Simon Beaufoy, Slumdog Millionaire
Should Win: David Hare, The Reader

Eric Roth's adaptation of Benjamin Button is not so much an adaptation as a re-write, not to mention a large scale plagiarism of Forrest Gump. If he wins, it will be a travesty. Beaufoy did a good job of cutting down large portions of Swarup's novel while staying true to its spirit but I thought Hare's work on The Reader was very compelling, giving us a superbly nuanced piece which was though provoking yet moving.

Original Screenplay: Dustin Lance Black, Milk; Andrew Stanton, Jim Reardon, Peter Doctor, Wall-E; Martin McDonagh, In Bruges; Courtney Hunt, Frozen River; Mike Leigh, Happy-Go-Lucky

Will Win: Dustin Lance Black, Milk
Should Win: Dustin Lance Black, Milk

My ability to judge this category is compromised by the fact that I have only seen Milk and Wall-E. There is usually a strong correlation between Best Picture and Best Original or Adapted Screenplay. As Milk is the only Best Picture nominee that is nominated here, it should be a shoo-in. Dustin Lance Black has written an excellent, personal and very heartfelt script, and from what I can tell, he deserves it. (It would be interesting to see In Bruges, which has been touted as a highly original script and film though)

Technical Awards Predictions (Should Wins in Brackets):

Best Cinematography: Slumdog Millionaire (The Curious Case of Benjamin Button)
Best Music: Slumdog Millionaire (Wall-E)
Best Song: Slumdog Millionaire, Jai Ho (Slumdog Millonaire, Jai Ho) but it really should be The Wrestler by Bruce Springsteen which was not even nominated
Best Art Direction: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (The Curious Case of Benjamin Button)
Best Visual Effects: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (The Dark Knight)
Best Costume Design: The Duchess (The Duchess)
Best Make-Up: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (The Curious Case of Benjamin Button)
Film Editing: Slumdog Millionaire (Slumdog Millionaire)